#ishmaelgreen

[ishmaelsbones]

Sometimes at night I lay

in my bed, sleepless

and I feel

blue lace curtain of veins 

my skull in my head

Feel the smooth pearly teeth the thing arch of jaw the fragile bridge bump of nose.

I feel my pulse the heart pump as the blood fills my brain helping it breathe.

I try to picture myself

as a body as embodied My internal organs dully glowing With their slow churning business of keeping me alive.

I have been in this form for nearly 30 years and I still don’t fully believe I belong here. It is the strangest most distant feeling and I can’t even tell what part of me is most real.

[ishmaelsbones]

The Web

I exist in a great web of others’ creativity That mine will soon join. A kaleidoscope of existence formed by every dream Every imagination, every hope Manifested into the wide wide world. Every school Every song Every book Every storefront Every car Was once upon a time An idea someone had That someone else thought would never work.

[ishmaelsbones]

To the Shrine of Forgotten Things

Here it is. A broken pencil. Snapped quite in two. A marble. From a game of marbles played, but decades through. Here a toy horse, missing its harness and its head. Here the doggie in the window that nobody Ever did take home to be fed. Here lie the forgotten things And here is their shrine. And it’s here in this bleak and desolate place where your heart finally leaves mine.

[ishmaelsbones]

In-law

A frail, tidy woman holds out

The boxed-up moments I am expected

To piece myself out into. Precisely divided time slots are allotted 

for every damn gasp of breath I have left. 

I smile politely

And step inside them

Painting the cramped insides

With my frustration and alternative 

Options. Desires. Opinions.

And ways of living well.

[ishmaelsbones]

Humans will not destroy the earth. We are not so powerful. Humans will destroy the earth that can shelter us as a species, that sustains our form of life. Life itself has survived much greater catastrophes, and will survive humanity as well.

Ishmael Green